Pentagon Works Around Congress, Finds Funding for US Units in Iraq

The Pentagon says it will be able to continue funding for at least the next 90 days US military personnel in Iraq who are training Iraqi security forces, even though Congress stripped money for the program in a recent resolution.

About $1.7 million will be taken “from a special combatant commanders initiative fund” to continue the training that a couple hundred US troops are performing for the Iraqi forces.

Most Americans have been led to believe that all US forces besides those guarding the massive American Embassy in Iraq have been withdrawn since the end of last year. But small units have remained in Baghdad to support elite Iraqi forces that report directly to the increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.